The festive season is upon us yet again, and all along portobello road there are signs in shops and on stalls reminding us that in order to let our darling youngsters know how much we love them we are going to have to spend a crippling amount.
Yet not everyone lets the festive money sucking season overwhelm them, take the famous female talking TV head presenter and 'comedienne' (who had a book out that was being advertised on TV for the Christmas market at the time). This well known fog horned TV 'funster' approached me one Christmas time as i was working on Portobello market for the season selling Xmas trees, the well known 'straight talking' TV funny lady approached my stall and took a fancy to the largest and best tree we were selling that year, a huge 12 to 14 foot beast, "How much is that great tree?" she asked, her neck craning to see the top, when i gave her the price she looked at me and without a trace of irony or humor in her voice the (ahem) 'celeb' then tried to knock the cost straight down to half price, a pittance. Yet even after i told her that her offer was less than what the trader had originally paid at the wholesaler's she still tried to buy the tree for less than it originally cost, after i had again explained to her that i was "not authorised to change the prices or give discounts" she started to get really insistent by asking repeatedly to buy it cheap and in all that time she didn't modify the price she was offering for the tree, not by even one £ pound.
After some time it had started to become apparent to the insistent 'celeb' that i wasn't going to lower the price just for her despite the brow beating she had given me, so she decided to try and get at me another way by pulling my heartstrings instead, tilting her head slightly she told me in a gentle motherly kind of way how "the tree is not for me and i didn't want to get one but my kids insist we get one and i don't want to ruin their Christmas", half joking i replied "ah Well then, as its for the kids you wont mind paying full price for the tree because i know that you can afford it on the money you earn!" She was not amused.
That was that moment she took to turn round on her heels and marched away holding her head up high as if to insinuate that i had insulted her and her families lineage in a very grave manner indeed. My boss wasn't too happy with me when he found out. But my abiding memory of the event was the feeling that the 'celeb' had expected to either get the tree for very cheap or even free, just because of who she was - or thought she was.
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